“Ocean Sovereign’s Might? An A-Rank Talent?”
Ethan stared at the System prompt, then opened his personal panel.
[PANEL]
Name: Ethan Vale
Race: αK49 Blue Star / Human
Identity: An Eastern Isles scholar lost to shipwreck; sole survivor of the Explorer
Level: Tier 4 Hunter; Tier 2 Infiltrator
Talents:
– SSS-Rank Infinite Fishing (Talent)
Evolved: Rodless Fishing; Locate Fishing Grounds
– A-Rank Ocean Sovereign’s Might
– F-Rank Rapid Comprehension
Faction: Order
Knowledge:
– Hunter’s Wisdom
– Poison Identification
– Demonic Tongue
– Basic Alchemy
– Troll Tongue
– An ancient Angelic Sigil usable to bind and banish ill-omened entities
Most of it made sense.
Knowledge belonged to the Endless Sea—things natives could learn with enough time.
But player Talents were different.
From everything Ethan had observed, Talents above A-Rank were something this world’s natives simply didn’t have access to.
Maybe the official theory was true. Maybe the “small worlds” really were breaking—and the System was selecting players to patch the cracks.
Still.
Why were Talents so wildly uneven?
Random? Or a rule no one had found yet?
Ethan closed the panel and forced the thoughts away.
He still had a long-term quest—fish Stormsea Island itself, earn the Creator’s Shard, and learn a piece of the world’s truth.
If he completed that, many of these questions might answer themselves.
For now, he had a different objective.
Iseralai’s Tomb.
The merfolk library.
The Chart of Fate.
Tier 5.
A bargain with the merfolk chieftain—Earth Core in hand—so he could prepare to claim divinity.
…
September 20—Cycle 11, the Endless Sea.
The ocean stretched clean and endless beneath a cool autumn wind.
Near Windrest’s docks, Ethan stood on the deck of the Ragesand and used Ocean Sovereign’s Might to feel the surrounding waters.
Five meters down and to his left: a school of Glimmerfin Carp.
Two nautical miles behind: a shark hunting a tuna, jaws wide, teeth like knives, almost closing on its prey.
Below the shark, a Roaring Octopus watched in silence, waiting to steal the kill.
Ethan sank his awareness into the tuna.
In an instant, the endless horizon remained—but another view layered over it: the ocean from inside the fish.
Water churned. The shark still chased.
Ethan forced the tuna into sharp climbs and dives, stealing distance. Then he drove it toward the Glimmerfin school.
The tuna plunged into the dense swarm.
The carp scattered in panic. Under sunlight, their bodies flashed with speckled bioluminescence—countless light flecks merging into one writhing, snarling “monster.”
The shark flinched.
Confused, spooked, it abandoned the tuna and fled the area at full speed.
The Roaring Octopus, robbed of its opening, relaxed and sank into the deep.
Ethan released the tuna and drew his mind back into his own skull.
He faced the wind and breathed in slowly.
Even with his Tier limiting how much he could push the Talent, Ocean Sovereign’s Might was… absurdly useful.
“My lord,” Haizan’s voice sounded behind him.
“The Mirage Market’s chatter says the waters around Stormsea Island aren’t peaceful lately,” the troll said. “To avoid trouble, should we follow the merchants’ route for a stretch, then use the Tidebound Scepter to teleport near Duskfall Island?”
Ethan had promised Red Falcon he’d cooperate once the Black-White Court arrived to investigate the bloodless corpses.
But it would take time for messages to travel, for negotiations, for the Court’s ship to reach Stormsea Island.
Ethan refused to waste days waiting in Windrest.
So he’d decided to use the gap.
Yesterday he had Haizan prepare a small ship—the Ragesand, a troll-built magic vessel.
The trolls had crafted it with spell-responsive materials in every critical section. No steam. No boiler. No huge crew.
The ship’s owner spoke the correct incantations, and the Ragesand obeyed.
But Ethan was operating in human waters now. Even on a wide ocean, chance encounters happened.
So he had the trolls retrofit the ship: a chimney, deck guns, rope ladders—the right silhouettes.
From the outside, it looked like a modest merchant steamer.
Today, that disguise mattered.
Ethan traveled with Haizan, twenty-odd troll warriors, the merfolk Delanna, and the Coral Map.
Delanna could read the map. Their first step was Duskfall Island, near the merfolk temple—find the proper coordinates, then follow starlight to the next.
Iseralai’s Tomb wouldn’t be reached in a single leap.
Fortunately, with the scepter, they only needed to leave the crowded shipping lanes before teleporting.
“What do you mean ‘not peaceful’?” Ethan asked.
Haizan bowed his head slightly. “It isn’t just Stormsea Island. A few ships that drifted off course—isolated, separated—have vanished without a trace. Some factions investigated. They found nothing. In the end, the Mirage Market started passing warnings around. That’s how I heard.”
Missing ships.
Ethan considered it for a moment, then let it go.
He had a priority. He wasn’t going to chase extra threads unless they strangled him.
“Follow a safe route first,” Ethan said. “Then we teleport.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The Ragesand sounded its horn and surged forward, breaking the waves. The fake chimney belched fake black smoke. The hull even mimicked a boiler’s rumbling, deep and convincing.
Ethan rested a hand on the railing and felt the subtle tremor.
The trolls were meticulous. No one nearby would realize this wasn’t steam at all.
“Meow.”
A cat’s voice came from behind him.
“You still came,” Ethan said without turning.
Skye sat on the deck in black-cat form, looking painfully relaxed in the sunlight.
“I have business with the merfolk chieftain too,” Skye said, tail flicking. “Back then, the merfolk ran off with black-dragon property. I’m not missing the chance to find their lair.”
Ethan eyed her. “You’re not going there to start a war, are you?”
“Please.” Skye lifted her chin. “I won’t sabotage your cooperation. If there’s a fight, it won’t be because I wanted one.”
Delanna emerged from the cabin, expression bright. “I’ve already warned my people. The Magma Lord’s escape matters to us. Our chieftain is willing to meet you, Rhine.”
Her smile turned faintly sharp. “And she’s… quite interested in you.”
Ethan understood the subtext. Traveler. Outsider. A curiosity.
Skye didn’t. The cat’s brow creased as if someone had insulted her.
The voyage stayed smooth.
At the right moment, the Ragesand slipped away from the merchant route—
—and a heartbeat later, a ship appeared near Duskfall Island, as if the sea had simply decided it belonged there.
“Let me see the map,” Delanna said, tracing the Coral Map and searching for the key point.
Ethan, with nothing else to do, tested Ocean Sovereign’s Might again.
At Tier 4, he could sense roughly five to six nautical miles.
Farther than that, the connection thinned—like a thread stretched too tight.
He sank his awareness deeper.
Fish. Schools. Pockets of strange life.
And deeper still: something huge and soft, unmoving, asleep.
Ethan compared it to memories.
A sea tumor.
They’d encountered one before when the Sorrow Theater still floated. Back then, he and Skye had been hunting lightning eels and almost got dragged into the thing’s orbit.
A sea tumor was a low-tier, mindless supernormal beast. If you didn’t provoke it, it usually didn’t provoke you.
Ethan let the creature be and sent his mind outward again.
He found reefs—dense, jagged formations beneath the water.
Duskfall Island.
It reminded him of last time, when those reefs had led him to a kind-hearted boy with a new ship: James Lloyd, the Radiance Island Governor’s youngest son.
James had used his bright-red Sunship to guide Ethan through the rocks.
Ethan wondered, briefly, whether the boy had ever gone looking for the merfolk who’d charmed him.
Skye pointed with her paw. “Hey. That shiny gold sun… isn’t that the Sunship?”
Ethan looked.
A gorgeous red vessel rode the waves, a ridiculous golden sun emblem blazing at its prow.
Ethan’s smile vanished.
The Sunship wasn’t being handled like a ship with a living captain.
It swerved. It drifted. It lurched as if no one was truly steering.
“Something wrong?” Skye asked, watching it veer toward them.
“I sense taboo arts,” Haizan said after a moment of focus. “There’s a Soul-Eater among them.”
Skye and Ethan understood at once.
Marsas’s people.
Or students working under his shadow.
“Should I—” Haizan began.
“No.” Ethan shook his head.
The moment Ethan suspected trouble, he’d pushed his awareness onto the Sunship.
He saw it clearly: pirates, dressed for blood and salt, had seized the deck. James and his crew were tied at the stern.
For reasons Ethan couldn’t yet see, the pirates hadn’t killed them.
Worse: the pirates noticed the Ragesand and began angling toward it.
They were coming to take a second prize.
“These idiots are eyeing us,” Haizan said, eager.
Ethan glanced at the deck gun bolted to the railing. “Can you fire it?”
Haizan stared at him as if he’d asked a priest to pilot an airship.
“My lord… these human devices…”
Haizan didn’t understand why a Tier 4, Rank 9 supernormal would abandon spells for iron and powder.
And, more importantly, he didn’t know how.
Haizan cleared his throat. “I… prefer sorcery.”
“That’s fine.” Ethan smiled. “Just make it look convincing. And try not to hit our own ship.”
Haizan looked even more confused.
Skye and Delanna watched, equally puzzled.
Ethan didn’t explain. He only nodded westward.
Far off on the sea, barely bigger than a beetle at that distance, a ship cut through the waves.
“That’s a Black-White Court vessel,” Ethan said.
Ethan had sensed it earlier, thanks to Ocean Sovereign’s Might.
“The Court is chasing Marsas’s trail out here. They’re heading this way.”
His gaze stayed on the approaching pirates.
“So let them deal with it. We don’t need to expose ourselves.”